#kellie jones

[goodblacknews]

(via 2018 American Book Awards Honor Cultural Diversity)

[currentinspiration]

Photo of Senga Nengudi from: South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s by Kellie Jones

[brooklynmuseum]

This weekend we’re celebrating our brand new exhibition to We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85) with a jam-packed weekend of programming. After our opening on Thursday, join us all day Friday for a day-long symposium that delves deep into the revolutionary artistic practices on view in the exhibition. Hear from the show curators and leading art historians on the importance of new modes of artistic production employed by artists and gain greater insight on the context of art-making in this critical time period from the artists themselves. Expect to hear brand new scholarship about art from the period and hear directly from some of the most important living black women artists about what it was like to create art at the intersection of various political movements. Participants of the symposium include:

We Wanted a Revolution artists:

Linda Goode Bryant

Maren Hassinger

Janet Henry

Jae Jarrell

Lisa Jones

Dindga McCannon

Lorraine O’Grady

Howardena Pindell

Faith Ringgold

Alison Saar

Lorna Simpson

Curators and scholars:

Catherine Morris, Sackler Family Senior Curator, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum

Rujeko Hockley, Assistant Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art

Dr. Aruna D’Souza, Art Historian and Critic

Dr. Kellie Jones, Associate Professor of Art History and Archaeology and the Institute for Research in African American Studies, Columbia University

Dr. Uri McMillan, Associate Professor of English, University of California, Los Angeles

Posted by Lauren Argentina Zelaya

[concerthopperblog]

Review: KC Jones Takes You on a Tour of Her Musical Influences on 'Queen of the In-Between'

It's not uncommon for an artist to change his name or form a band with a new name to differentiate his side project from his main thing. Oysterhead didn't need to worry that they sounded nothing like Phish or Police and somehow (HOW?) even stranger than Les Claypool's usual output. Atoms for Peace didn't... Ok, that one's not really applicable because Thom Yorke never really cared if Radiohead sounded like last album Radiohead anyway. The latest is KC Jones, who fans of Cajun music may know as Kellie Jones from award winning Louisiana acts Feufollet and T'Monde. And, boy, is the name change appropriate for her solo debut Queen of the In-Between, an album as far removed from Jones' Cajun (and before that, Appalachian folk) roots as could get.

On Queen of the In-Between, Jones doesn't so much pull away from her roots as just dive deeper into her other roots that she hasn't explored musically in the past. No one can listen to this album and not think Jones has spent significant time listening to classic country, '60s girl groups, and fuzzed out psych-folk. In the wrong hands, those genre swings could make for an uneven album. But Jones ties it all together with a vocal performance that, while fully embracing the style, still maintains the core essence of her as well as smart songwriting throughout.

The album's highlight, from a lyrical standpoint at least, is “Bring the House Down.” Anchored by a minimalist bass and hazy guitar lick, Jones riffs on the typical phrase for a wild party by turning it on its head. In this case, she's not throwing a party, but “bringing the house down” by locking herself away from others to suffer the loss of a relationship alone or, when in the presence of others, bringing down the house's mood. It's a great hook and, musically, finds Jones doing her best Bobbie Gentry while the chorus behind her gives a Ronettes vibe and the bass, organ, and guitar riffs kind of sound like The Doors at half-speed.

Stylistically bookending “Bring the House Down” is the crashing and hyper-fuzzed guitar intro to “Stop on the Way”, which gives way to an acoustic strum on verses with the electric crashing back in on the choruses. A song about facing the reality that her current lover isn't a permanent fixture but she's just “a stop on the way.” Nevertheless, she embraces the transient nature, taking romance where she gets it. There are so many styles at play here. The acoustic verses sound like they could come out of the Greenwich “Great Folk Scare” while the electric choruses could pass for one of those songs with videos that featured kaleidoscope patterns behind it.

Album-wide, Jones nails whatever she's trying to do. The wide genre net she casts works simply because it reminds the listener of visiting a friend with a really eclectic record collection, the one who is liable to throw on Blue followed by some ? And The Mysterians followed by “White Rabbit” and rounded out with a little Patsy Cline. Jones, whether Kellie or KC, has always been an underrated talent on the fringes of the Americana scene, and with Queen of the In-Between proves herself the kind of person that sometimes laughably overlarge genre label was built for. She goes where her muse takes her. We're all just lucky enough for her to let us ride along.

Queen of the In-Between releases June 18 and you can get your copy of it on her website or at your favorite indie record store (shop local!). Or you can pick up an album from her other gig Feufollet at their Bandcamp page, just in time for that site's Juneteenth sale in which all of their cut of the profits go to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

[amherstarts-blog]

Don’t underestimate the ability of art to change the world.

Dr. Kellie Jones, Amherst College class of 1981 and 2016 MacArthur Fellow

[authorjessjarman]

Wednesday Randomness: Promptly Penned #13

Wed Randomness: Promptly Penned posts up! @Bronwyn_Green, @VampBard @GwendolynCease @kris_norris @BeTheStage @paige_prince #flashfic

This month, I’m going to revisit some of my favorite boys – Michael and Aric – sort of. This is a snippet seen through the eyes of Michael’s sister, Trina. If you want to see the other pieces with the boys, here you go: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 The prompt will be bolded in the story itself. :) “I’m coming, for fuck’s sake!” Trina called out, supremely pissed at whoever was…

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[goodblacknews]

(via Claudia Rankine, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Kellie Jones and Joyce J. Scott Among 2016 MacArthur "Genius" Grant Recipients)

[artxshe]